


Rounded with a Sleep

by Celandine



Series: Narnia Sequence [2]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Incest, New Year's Resolutions, Romance, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-28
Updated: 2008-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 03:25:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/120249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celandine/pseuds/Celandine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a child, Susan crept into Peter's bed when she was frightened. In Narnia she does the same for rather different reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rounded with a Sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redshoeson](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=redshoeson).



When they were tiny, Susan had often slept in Peter's bed. Storms frightened her, and sometimes she had nightmares, and then she would shiver her way down the hallway and creep under his covers. Peter would draw upon all of his nearly two years' seniority to comfort her, and the act of doing so brought courage to him as well.

Once Edmund was old enough to be moved into a proper bed, though, and what had been Peter's room became the boys' room, Mother made it plain to both of them that Susan needed to stay in her own room, and her own bed, and should not go to Peter even if she was frightened. Lucy might still be far too young for anything but a crib, but soon, Mother said, Susan would need to be there for Lucy, as Peter had been for Susan and still could be for Edmund.

Peter missed having Susan cuddle close to him at night. Edmund occasionally slipped into Peter's bed when he had an especially bad dream, but Edmund kicked and took more than his share of the bedclothes, and it wasn't at all the same.

The boys' room and girls' room arrangement continued after they were evacuated to Professor Kirke's. His house had far more rooms than their own home, but Mrs Macready was not about to prepare more than two of them for unwanted evacuees. Since they had to help tidy and were used to sharing rooms in any case, the Pevensie children did not object.

In Narnia, everything changed. The days and nights before the fight against the White Witch and her forces were unlike anything else, of course, but once they had been crowned at Cair Paravel, each of them had his or her own room -- indeed, whole suites of rooms, any that they liked.

"Which rooms are you going to take?" Peter asked, looking especially at Susan although he meant Edmund and Lucy to answer as well. The rooms for the High King were more or less fixed; he could choose to have others, if he wanted, but there was a stair from that sitting room down to an antechamber behind the throne room, so there would be no point in going elsewhere.

"I want to face east," said Lucy. "Perhaps the rooms on the northeast end, so I can see both the sea and the forest."

"I'll take the rooms next to yours, Peter," said Susan. "Ed can have the ones next down, if that's all right?"

Edmund shrugged. "I don't much care. Those will be fine."

It might be good for Edmund to be at the far end of the hallway, at that, so that he'd not feel looked-after. Peter supposed that perhaps it was partly the idea that he could never catch up to Peter that had made Edmund willing to betray them.

"Then it's settled," Peter said.

For all that they'd made their choices, it was nearly a week before each had moved in to his or her own room. Tapestries and other hangings had to be brought in to soften the cold stone of the walls, furniture found, mattresses beaten clean, linens and coverlets washed and spread out on the beds. The girls were inevitably the ones in charge of making the castle habitable, while Peter began to learn how to rule; Edmund sometimes sat with him but also explored the armoury and the library. Until all was ready, they continued in the tents and pavilions of the army, for the weather remained fair.

The first night in his rooms alone, Peter had trouble sleeping. He missed hearing the sound of someone else breathing in the bed next to his, either Edmund, or one of the boys at school. He hadn't slept completely alone since he was six.

Sometime past midnight, judging from the angle of the moonlight streaming in -- Peter had forgotten to draw the curtains -- a tap sounded on his door.

"Peter?" Susan's voice was quiet, as if she feared to wake him, if he slept.

"Come in, Su," Peter answered, and she slipped into the room, looking at him a little shame-facedly.

"I didn't like being all alone," she said.

"Nor did I," he reassured her. "It's all right. Here," and he lifted the corner of the quilt invitingly.

She came into his bed just as she had when she was two or three or four, curling up against him, and Peter put his arm around her in the way he only half-remembered. Then they both slept at last.

When Peter woke in the morning, though, Susan had gone. She explained it to him in low tones later, in a moment snatched for themselves.

"No one must think that there's anything odd between us. You know what I mean. It doesn't matter what the truth is, it's the look of things."

Peter knew she was right, when he considered the matter, but it put queer thoughts into his head, thoughts of Susan as a girl and not just a sister. He tried to banish them, but it was difficult when she continued to share his bed most nights. He didn't want to tell her she couldn't do so any more; the nights that Susan wasn't there, Peter slept restlessly at best. Yet when she was, he fought to keep control of his body, to respect her.

Five years passed thus. Narnia was at peace, all order restored, and the land began to prosper. The rulers of other countries sent their ambassadors and emissaries to make treaties and trade agreements. Edmund proved a shrewd negotiator, able to strike bargains much to Narnia's advantage, without provoking in others any ill-will.

One day he came to Peter and said, "An offer of marriage has been made for our sister Susan."

"What?" Peter berated himself for never having considered such a thing, though of course it was perfectly reasonable. "From whom?"

"The Archenlanders. Not the royal family, but one of their great nobles is seeking a bride," said Edmund.

Peter's first reaction was to simply say no, but he knew that would not resolve matters. If there had been one such offer, there would be more, and more. "Let us consult with her, then. As queen she may decide for herself whether she wishes to consider this or any offer."

When the question was put to her, Susan paled. "Must I wed?"

"Nay, of course not," they made assurance.

Edmund added, "The lord Darrin is noble, but no king. 'Tis a simple matter to decline, if that is your will."

"But offers may come from princes and kings in the future," she said, her head bent. Peter ached to see her thus.

"That may be true, but you are of greater value than any treaty or agreement. We will not bargain with your life or happiness," he said in a firm voice, to which Edmund agreed.

"Then I prefer to remain here in Narnia as queen, as Aslan chose for me," said Susan.

"As you wish," said Edmund. "I shall consult you, though, if there are other such proposals."

"That is only right and proper, though I do not expect to change my mind," Susan told him, and Edmund went to convey her refusal in the most courteous terms he could.

Susan came to Peter's room late that night, as so often, but she did not merely curl against him and sleep as was their custom.

"I never thought that anyone would seek marriage," she whispered into Peter's chest as he held her. "There is no one I could desire, except..."

"Except whom?" Peter wondered if there might be some courtier or knight upon whom Susan's fancy had fallen, though he had not seen her favour any in the most recent tournaments. "If there is someone you love, let not your position as queen restrain you. There is naught to prevent you from wedding, if you will."

She shook her head. "It is impossible."

"Why so? Tell me, Susan," he entreated, but she would not speak that night, nor the next, nor the next, though she came to his bed each night and her eyes were reddened with weeping.

At the end of a week, as Peter begged her once more to disclose her thoughts, Susan sighed. "Promise me you will hold what I tell you secret."

"In Aslan's name, I swear."

"You are the one I love, not just as brother but as man," she told him, her voice strange and distant. "I know you do not feel the same, for you have always treated me with fraternal kindness, no more. Yet I cannot love another, and I cannot leave you."

"Susan." Peter was well-accustomed to Narnia now, but he wished for a moment that he need not fumble to find and light a candle, if he wished to see her face. Instead he touched her cheek in the darkness. "Oh, Susan, you are mistaken."

"How so?" she whispered.

"I have never spoken, nor done aught else, for fear of frightening you, but I love you well." Peter let his thumb brush Susan's lips. "Not just as sister but as woman."

"You do?" Susan kissed his thumb, then took his hand in hers and kissed the palm. "Why then... shall we not please ourselves?"

"Do you think... but is it not wrong?" Peter tried desperately to think. The face of Aslan flickered into his mind. "You said to me long since that we must let no one know that we share a bed at times, and is this not a far more serious thing?"

"I care not any longer," said Susan. "I have lived in despair over this for years, Peter, and I _will_ have this of you, unless you are unwilling." As she spoke she brought his hand to her breast, and he gasped, feeling through the fine lawn of her nightdress the hard jut of her nipple, just as he had tried not to imagine it.

"Not... unwilling," he mumbled, stroking, moving his head closer to hers until they kissed for the first time, the sweet wrongness of it glancing through him to provoke desire for more, for all that she would give -- and somehow he knew that Susan would hold nothing back from him, if he wished it.

As she did not. In a tangle of sheets she opened herself to him, soft and moist and quivering, and he wondered how he felt to her, hard and foreign, intrusive? But Susan's moan was of pleasure, not pain, as Peter sank into her body, still unsure of the rightness of it, but the yearning he had felt for so long was too much to bear unrelieved, now that he knew it was reciprocated.

They moved together, awkward yet determined, and Peter's doubts were lost in the ecstasy he felt at last, held safely now in his sister's arms as he had always before protected her. Susan called his name, a whisper, a breath, a keening cry, and he kissed her eyelids and they held each other close.

For all Susan's insistence that their love was not wrong, they both knew it could not be spoken of, nor shown. Susan made light of her repeated refusals of marriage offers, first telling Edmund that she would not relinquish the throne on which Aslan had placed her, later reminding him of a queen of England who had never wed, yet was recalled as the greatest of them all, and Edmund gave way with good grace for the most part, though it made his diplomacy difficult.

"At least consider it," Edmund pleaded with her when the Calormene embassy sent the proposal of the Tisroc, that Susan marry his son. "The empire is too strong for us to refuse outright, and coldly, without risk of war."

"Perhaps she could travel to meet the prince?" Lucy had been whispering with Mr Tumnus. "Then both could make an informed decision, is that not so?"

Peter wanted to refuse on Susan's behalf, but it was not his place. There was no reason why she should not visit the great city of Tashbaan, meet the Tisroc and his son. It was jealousy he dared not show that urged him to keep Susan in Cair Paravel with himself. Nonetheless he bade the party farewell with heavy heart, and was glad when events fell out such that Susan would stay safely in Narnia.

To Peter's relief, neither Edmund nor Lucy ever seemed to wonder further why Susan declined all marriage. To Lucy, the issue of Aslan's will was evidently enough. Why Edmund asked no more, Peter did not know, but he was grateful enough not to question it.

The shock of return to their own world from Narnia was enough to disrupt everything, to call into doubt all the justifications with which they had calmed their consciences. Peter managed to pull Susan aside the following day, while Lucy and Edmund were cleaning their teeth before going to bed.

"We mustn't..." he began.

"I know," said Susan. She put a single finger to his lips, and he kissed it, knowing that he would never have her to himself again.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for redshoeson in the New Year Resolutions 2008 Challenge at Yuletide. The title is from William Shakespeare, _The Tempest_ , act 4, sc. 1, l. 170. Thanks to emiime for looking it over!


End file.
